Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross debacle
The Guardian’s Jenni Russell is always worth reading. Today she shines a light on an important dimension of the Brand Ross debacle. She describes her own experience as a young BBC producer trying to deal with a cantankerous and sloppy radio presenter. After trying to get the star in question to perform better it was quickly made clear by the powers that be it was he the ‘talent’ – not she the producer – who would call the shots. Within days the presenter had her removed from the programme.
Russell cites her own experience to underline the thesis that the problem at the BBC was about the power imbalance between Brand and Ross and their fixers on the one hand, and the young producers and corporate executives on the other. There are parallels here with the widespread feeling among football fans that individual players and their agents (who, unlike the fans who pay their wages, generally lack any loyalty to a club) have too much power. Echoes too of the City in which mathematical whiz kids and super charged deal makers ran rings round both internal and external supervision.
Which takes us to a much bigger debate about the nature and value of individual talent. Coming from another angle Malcolm Gladwell has made two important contributions to this debate. First, he has demonstrated that the point at which geniuses produce what is deemed by their peers to be their master work is distributed across the life cycle. The Mozart phenomenon of genius being exhibited almost from the cradle is the exception. Of course, people who prove to be great artists, intellectuals or inventors are likely to show talent in their youth but the point at which this talent creates a truly exceptional product is unpredictable. This randomness is often subsequently disguised. This is because once someone achieves genius status all their work before and after their breakthrough will tend to be favourably reassessed.
This is a point made by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in ‘The Black Swan’ where he suggests the process by which certain authors or composers emerge as geniuses while the rest fall back into obscurity is much more serendipitous than we like to imagine. I love Dickens and think Great Expectations is a work of genius but I suspect that in the canon of Dickens there are many novels which are seen as classics even though they are inferior to other forgotten works by Victorians who never got their big breakthrough. Thus the idea that Dickens was a genius throughout his life and that he stood head and shoulders above his contemporaries is a self fulfilling prophesy.
Gladwell has also thrown his weight behind the argument that scientific breakthroughs, which end up being attributed to one person, are nearly always the outcomes of the work of many people, one of whom happens to put in place the final piece of the jigsaw. Had the so called genius not existed then the piece would have inevitably been put in place by someone else.
The combination of post-hoc rationalisation, the allure of simple stories of human heroism and the ideology of individualism has cemented the myth of individual talent. Globalisation, the growth of PR and celebrity culture have accelerated this process. Those deemed talented are then in a powerful position to reinforce the myth at every turn.
The blind worship of individual talent is intellectually suspect and socially destructive. Maybe this too will be a welcome victim of these new times.
Continuing the debate on the Brand and Ross ructions
Perhaps this blog thing really works. Last week I did some filming for the Politics Show on the basis of a ‘blogversation’ with Tim Montgomerie from Conservative Home and this morning I am woken by a call from Radio Wales asking me to do a piece about Brand and Ross (the subject of yesterday’s posting). This gave me a chance to set the row over obscene ‘phone messages in the wider context of the debate over public service broadcasting.
Over the years, especially when Government has been looking at the BBC Charter and the license fee arrangements, I have been ‘consulted’ by members of the BBC’s expansive public affairs team. I have also attended several splendid lunches ostensibly held so the DG of the BBC can hear the insights of assembled opinion formers. It took me some time to realise these events aren’t about listening at all – they are an opportunity for BBC executives to do their well rehearsed big sell of the Corporation.
I got to understand this when, a few years ago, I approached a couple of these events with a strong opinion of my own. As I expounded my ideas about the future of public service broadcasting I sensed from the shuffling feet and glazed eyes that my insights were about as welcome and respected as those of the man in the huge overcoat who once sat next to me on a bus and claimed to be able to control the weather with his feet.
But on Radio Wales this morning I had a captive audience. Having mentioned in passing my thesis that the economic downturn will see greater intolerance towards bad behaviour by the rich and privileged, and recognising also the specific stupidity and bad taste of the Andrew Sachs episode (as too in fairness have Brand and Ross) I went on to say that the case of public service broadcasting needed to rest on two pillars: quality and public value.
They may not be to my taste, but arguably quality is not the problem with Brand and Ross. What they do, they do well, commanding impressive listening and viewing figures and a loyal following, particularly among the young, a group that has many other options for its entertainment than the BBC But it is much harder to make the public value case for their broadcasting.
The unwelcome question I asked across the salmon mousse at all those audiences with BBC executives was ‘can everyone who works for the Corporation explain the public service purpose of what they do?’ This is easy enough for the likes of David Attenborough and Andrew Marr. Which is why they are the ones at the lunches and who get wheeled out at Charter renewal time. As someone once said the BBC can be relied upon to get ‘old time religion’ when its future is up for grabs (the someone in person being Mark Thompson, then head of C4) but what does the public service obligation mean for Bruce Forsyth, Gary Lineker, or the producers of Spooks?
The answer might be subtle. It may rely a great deal on the credible argument that quality programming is itself in the public interest (especially now we live in a world when the economics of content production are becoming tougher and tougher) but in the end BBC producers and presenters have to show that they have ambitions and sensibilities beyond those who provide the content for commercial broadcasters.
That the BBC can cause a row like this is, in itself, an important sign of its importance as a public institution. Had Brand’s show been on Bravo or Virgin, and had it not been that we, as licence fee payers, felt that we had been compelled to pay for it, there would have been much less of a row. But this was exactly the problem with the climate in which Ross and Brand’s stuff was allowed to go out. The values of Brand’s programme seemed indistinguishable from those which might animate a cheap and nasty satellite channel.
A few years ago this idea that everyone be able to explain why working for the BBC (and being paid for by the citizen) made them different fell on deaf ears. Perhaps now it should be taken more seriously. Especially at a time when the BBC is fighting an aggressive campaign against the idea that its riches should be spread around the other ailing sectors of public service broadcasting.
Avoiding the temptations of boom and bust morality
Twenty years ago when Europe and America were gripped by the AIDS panic – and before we realised that its impact in the West would seem minor in comparison to the devastation it would wreak in Africa – public anxiety was reflected in popular culture. In particular there was a fashion for movies that told morality tales about the consequences for ‘respectable’ people of behaving immorally. One example was Martin Scorsese’s under-rated ‘After Hours’ in which a hapless white collar worker gets trapped on the wrong side of New York (those who like this film associated it forever with the phrase ‘surrender Dorothy’ but you’ll need to google to find out why). But more famous was Oscar nominated Fatal Attraction. Glenn Close’s demented pursuit of Michael Douglas even created a new noun – ‘bunny boiler’ – to describe someone (usually female) who takes a vengeful view of being spurned.
I was reminded of all this by the furore over Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand. It’s difficult to know what to think of the row. On the one hand, Ross and Brand were only continuing the kind of hyper puerile entertainment upon which they have built so much of their careers. This may have been an extreme example but it was hardly out of keeping with their general style. On the other hand, there is no question that had anyone else left obscene messages on a pensioner’s answer phone in working hours they would have been sacked on the spot.
The story has now become a media frenzy with even Gordon Brown taking time out of managing the crisis of global capitalism to add to the criticism. The fact that the papers are now condemning two celebrities they were until last week assiduously courting and publicising is merely par for the course. Maybe the story has such legs because we are desperate for something to take our mind off the economy. But I wonder whether there may be another link. I suspect that as mre and more people suffer the impact of the global downturn we will see a growing intolerance towards the failings and peccadilloes of the rich, famous and privilege – thus the link to the change in mood during the AIDS panic.
As I have said in previous postings, it would be a good thing if the economic downturn causes us all to pause for thought. As millions of people suffer, some who are the authors of their own fate, others who are innocent victims, there will be a debate about the relationship between merit and reward. Generally, we didn’t care that much about the riches of the City and celebrity culture when we were all doing well. We won’t feel the same over the near future. But whilst such reflection is a good thing, we must resist the mass media’s hypocritical invitation to indulge in blame mongering and self righteousness. Yes, the bankers were greedy and irresponsible but we didn’t mind as long as we could keep spending, our houses kept rising in value and we could pile on the debt with apparent impunity. Similarly, Ross and Brand didn’t become famous just because some faceless BBC executive decided they should. We watched Big Brother, we enjoyed Ross tripping up his guests with sly innuendo. It appears that we have not abolished boom and bust economics.
We should resist the temptation of boom and bust morality!
Old ideas and new jokes ….
In my blog yesterday, I am mentioned that I had just finished reading Michael Thompson’s book, Organising and Disorganising. I wrote to Michael today to say how much we are looking forward to hosting him here in December and asking him to write a piece for the Journal. Cheekily, I not only suggested a topic but offered my own thesis – I hope he doesn’t take umbrage. As regular readers of my blog will know (we must have lunch soon, Mum) the analysis of Michael’s book is based upon what he calls cultural theory. In essence, he argues there are four fundamental ways of viewing and conducting social relations. They are:
· Hierarchical – in which change is seen to come from the top through authority, expertise and traditional rules.
· Individualistic – change is seen to flow from the pursuit by each person of their own self-interest.
· Egalitarian – in which change is seen to develop bottom-up through group membership, shared values and solidarity.
· Fatalistic – in which change is seen to be illusory or random.
In fact, in the book, Michael creates a fifth category but you will have to buy the book to discover what it is …. This theory has so many strengths, it is difficult to know where to start. In particular, I like the fact that Michael rejects the notion that human development has an end point in favour of the view that change always results through the ‘clumsy’ interaction of ways of thinking and behaving. Another insight is the understanding, when one or more of these views, is excluded the outcome is at best sub-optimal, at worst catastrophic. And it is this that I asked Michael to reflect upon, asking him to think about what cultural theory has to say about the banking crisis. My thesis, shallow though it might be, is that the crisis reflects what happens when those who dwell within and preach a monolithic culture are given too much power. All that mattered in the City was individualism; there was no egalitarian belief in a wider social or moral purpose for banking, nor was there any effective hierarchy as the rules didn’t work, those notionally in charge were on a merry-go-round they could not get off (even if they wanted to) and no-one even really understood how the system worked.
Finally – and crucially – there no fatalism, which cultural theorists see as playing an important role in social order and change. Every banker believed he had an unlimited capacity to generate wealth and increase his earnings. To have a major area of activity so dominated by a single framing of human relations is rare. To then give those in that area the power to determine the well-being of billions of citizens is – as we have now come to understand – a disastrous error.
To the accompaniment of the sound of stable doors being loudly bolted, we are now seeing national leaders trying to reassert the importance of hierarchy in the form of strengthened global governance. We have already seen a growth in alternative lifestyles and in people seeing climate change as a powerful rationale for new forms of egalitarianism. Economic recession also provides the right circumstances to induce a long wave of fatalism. So we are poised at a very interesting moment.
I have sent the email to Michael just today and will report back whether he takes up the offer and on what he thinks of my thesis.
Sorry if this blog is a bit repetitive but for me cultural theory is like hearing a good joke – you want to keep sharing it. And to make up for being so boring here is a joke I made up last week (yes, yes, I really did make it up myself)
Where did Emile Zola go to relax?
His j’accuzzi
It is I’m afraid a shocking insight into the RSA that when I told a member of the project team this joke she asked
‘Emile Zola, didn’t he used to play for Chelsea?’
Jack Straw’s speech and cultural theory
A quick posting today squeezed in between a major event with Jack Straw this morning and Trustee Board this afternoon.
Jack’s speech this morning was clear and comprehensive. The Justice Secretary argued for a penal system based on the principles of ‘punishment and reform’. He took the prison reform and children’s charity sector to task for using opaque language and for forgetting the victim in all their talk of the needs and rights of offenders. Whatever one thinks of this argument it was brave to make it in front of several key figures from the sector present in a packed Great Room.
As the speech did not contain any new announcements but was pitched at the public (successfully judging from the press coverage) rather than the criminal justice policy world it might add to speculation that the Government is once again considering an early election. Surely Gordon Brown’s advisors won’t let this rumour build up again? Labour is still eight to ten points behind in most polls and to look as though ministers are considering electoral advantage at a time like this would be disastrous. If the rumour does grow (and a senior journalist told me last week they had heard it from several sources) I would expect it to be rebutted swiftly by the Number Ten.
I said on Friday that I was doing an item on the Politics Show on Sunday arising from various blogs about the politics of recession. Fortunately I have not yet met anyone who saw it as it was not my finest hour! Having expressly asked not to be portrayed as the former Labour voice this is exactly what happened. But more embarrassingly I agreed to dress up as a doctor in a terribly contrived piece about how to tell the patient/ public the bad news about the economy. It may have made good telly – who am I to judge – but I felt like an idiot.
Over the weekend I finished reading ‘Organising and Disorganising’ by Michael Thompson. I found the book enthralling. I am now a firm believer in what Thompson calls cultural theory. If you want to know why you can hear Michael speak here on December 4th or read the Journal piece we have just commissioned from him. I will try to expand on the theory and why I think it is powerful in further blogs this week
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